untitled Now Casualties of Conscience
by J.A. Carlton
Summary: There are things we do that make it hard to look ourselves in the eye, this is a fact one man will remember, and another will learn. WeeChesters
1. Chapter 1

Untitled – SN fic

Part 1 (intro)

by J.A. Carlton

aka sifichick

Disclaimer – Oh yeah… still here darn it.

Love – Oh yeah… still here thank the Universe.

Before the Vanir in Burkittsville, before the voodoo gig in New Orleans… there was That Time… that moment and those days that made hell itself a preferred option.

_Dear God… if you really exist… if you really give a damn about our piss pathetic race, help him find what he needs… help him please,_ John Winchester prayed fervently as he made the turn into the overgrown, once-upon-a-trail that led to the Sasquatana National Forest.

_You are sub-human John! You are the worst kind of scum doing what you've done… you drugged your own child! You poisoned your son you son of a bitch! Okay so a little whiskey goes a long way but to a kid that age it's as good as poison and you know it!_ His mind screamed at him and beneath that he could feel Mary, his beloved Mary berating him, telling him he'd gone too far this time and she was never, Ever going to be able to forgive him for this. Still he continued onward, the survival of his sons at stake and nothing else mattered.

About three miles into the forest he recognized the slanted trees that pointed East at the foot of the mountain. He put his borrowed truck into park and bowed his head against the steering wheel. His guts were heaving and his face dripped sweat as he got out and moved to the back seat, the easy light snoring of his boy doing its best to tear his heart from his chest.

He reached out and grasped the black leather cord around Dean's neck, instantly flashing back to the night he'd given it to him. He wondered if Missouri had known just how right she'd turn out to be. Dean hadn't had a screaming type nightmare since John had tied it around his neck, but he thought it might have done more for the boy too than just arrest the nightmares. Nothing seemed beyond him, it was as if there was nothing he couldn't do or handle, especially when it came to looking after his little brother. John knew his youngest would always be safe as long as Dean was around. Of course the whole Shtriga incident in Fort Douglas a couple years ago had made him even more attentive to Sammy. John wasn't sure if it was going to prove to be a good thing or not later in life, but right now Dean did nothing without Sammy at his side or in his sight. _Yeah, yet another time you put your own flesh and blood at risk in the name of your insane quest! You are a full time bastard John…_he flogged himself knowing he was walking a frighteningly fine line.

HE felt his eyes film over as he pocketed the pendant, not even noticing that what he'd originally thought was a simple blob of metal, had acquired an actual shape and countenance somewhere over the last nine years.

His heart pounded against the inside of his chest, some feral beast trying to escape as he sifted through the pack on the floor of the vehicle. It held all the basics his boy would need if he used them wisely. As he zipped Dean into his sleeping bag and lifted him from the back seat he soothed his conscience with the knowledge that Dean was already a proficient young hunter and that he'd often had to fend for himself as well as Sammy in surroundings that werefrequently far less hospitable than this.

_Yeah but you never took the talisman away before!_ his parental mind scolded him, _It's just a pendant!_ But he remembered Missouri's words through the window of his car as if she were speaking them now, "Yes John, it has meaning and that meaning has power."

_It's kept his nightmares at bay, it's helped him rise to all the hard… okay occasionally cruel challenges I've forced on him… I know it has a power… yeah but it's not the SOURCE of HIS strength… he's my son, he makes me so proud of him it hurts… it's his **heart** that makes him strong not some damned pendant! _

Steeling himself and cradling his unconscious son as best as he could considering how much he'd grown in the last year he moved into the shallow depression in the rock face that would serve his purposes. John could tell that Dean was going to follow his side of the gene pool when it came to height, but he couldn't have said which side Sammy was going to follow. The kid could eat them out of 'house and home' as the saying went, but so far John couldn't tell where he was putting it.

His head rang with protestations as he carried 13 year old Dean into the cave he'd scouted last week. He set him on the ground just as he was beginning to stretch and moan, and hurried back to the truck to retrieve his pack. He placed it near Dean so he would see it quickly and took this last moment to kiss his still unconscious son's forehead just as his young face twisted and a faint mewling crawled out of his throat.

John Winchester strode from the cave without another backward glance and left his thirteen year old son to live or die by what he'd learned in the last nine years.

Please R&R

T BC of course… maybe.

thanks sifi.


	2. Chapter 2

Untitled SN fic

Chapter 2 (technically)

by J.A. Carlton

aka sifichick

Use the disclaimer from the intro –

Love too remains constant…

Please R&R when finished and for the record Triple A (As Always Appreciated) especially the constructive criticisms.

Thanks

sifi

Dean startled and felt his body jerk awake, a horrible darkness time might have let him forget now stared into his minds' eye, betrothed to a sinister glee whose laughter brought tears to his eyes and his hands to his ears. He was struggling to muffle a sound that rattled on the inside, one that had been left by tragedy.

_I must still be dreaming, _he thought hating how weak the image made him feel, _I used to have nightmares like that…_the memory of them brought a scowl to his face and lightning seemed to strike him inside as his hand flew to his neck in the remembrance of a moment long past. _My amulet!_

"It takes away really bad dreams," he heard his father's deep soothing voice, feeling it vibrate in his frame as if he were holding him right then.

"Really?" he remembered asking.

"Really."

"Never?" he also remembered asking.

_He did say that he wouldn't say never… where is it?_ his heart lurched into his throat as he tried to sit up. _What the hell?_ he heard his fear bark and he squirmed wondering if he'd wrapped himself too tightly in his sheets but there was still something wrong. When he tried to flip over and cracked his elbow and head, and rolled onto a rock the size of the snapping turtle Sammy had found in the pond by Bobby's he knew what it was.

_We're not in the motel anymore? God… damn my head hurts… and my mouth tastes like that time I took a header into that pile of road apples… crap!_ "Dad?" he grunted trying to loosen the eye-goo that had appeared, "Dad?" _Hmm,_ "Sammy? You up?" he asked.

By now he'd realized he was in his sleeping bag and had worked his hands up to his eyes to sweep the sleep from them. _Wow… this is…different…_ "Sammy! Wake up!" he shouted feeling a deep thumping in his temples, "Oh hell… Dad? Dad!" _Where are they?_

_It looks like a cave… yeah… opening and rock all around with a dirt floor… there's my pack… but… no Dad and no Sammy… they're probably outside or something… scouting the area I bet_, but his belly was already dancing a somber jig. _Something isn't right about this…_he sat up letting his sleeping bag fall to the stone floor, _Their stuff… where's their stuff? _He felt his pulse beat in the hollow of his throat, kind of like it had when they'd stayed in that place on the West side of Chicago for a while, when the neighborhood kids had chased him for the first week before he'd finally let loose. He'd broken three noses, blackened eight eyes, squashed three sets of nuts and split five out of ten lips, and in so doing he'd won their respect, but at first it had been nerve wracking to say the least. Dean thought he'd beaten that feeling away for good that day, but he was wrong.

_My pendant! My pendant? Damnit where're Dad and Sam? God what if something happened to them? _He felt sweat flood out of him and his shirt grew damp as he became aware of an uncomfortable heaviness in his bladder, _What if they're hurt? _then something snaked up again and hissed into him, _If they were here they'd have their gear stacked in the cave with you…they left you… they left you behind_. "No…they wouldn't," he gave voice to the fear and felt its truth.

Fear wrapped itself around his chest and squeezed tight, his breath hitched and tears pricked his eyes as he scrambled out of the sleeping bag and stumbled into the glaring haze of late morning.

"Dad! Sammy! Where are you? Dad?" he hollered racing along the barely visible tracks that did not belong to dad's Impala. "Dad this isn't funny!" he heard his voice crack and recognized the sound of fear there as he grasped for answers, anything that could make this make sense, _Oh God… maybe I'm still dreaming… please let me be dreaming!_

Everything he'd ever learned slid away from him like quicksilver and standing there staring, he began to shake.

The next time Dean became truly aware of his surroundings the hazy light was steel gray, he'd gathered wood and the contents of his pack lay before him on the cool cave floor, inventory had been taken, his pendant wasnowhere to be found,and there were streaks of clean on his face from his eyes to his chin.

_Why would you put me here and leave me alone? Why would you take my pendant? I know I didn't lose it... did I? Maybe that's why he left me here... Did I do something wrong? What do you want me to do Dad? Are you testing me? Why did you leave me and… are you doing the same thing to Sammy?_ With that thought his tears slowed and he felt his jaw clench as he reached for the map he'd found in the pack. _Sammy's just a kid… he wouldn't dare do something like this to him… he'd be terrified… like me only more… it's got to be a test… he's probably even watching and all I've been doing is crying like a baby… stupid Dean… dad wouldn't leave me alone… not for real…_ but a tiny voice inside whispered something that felt very much like, _Sam's the one that matters…_he tried to convince himself otherwise but his heart wasn't in it. John frequently left him in charge of Sam for days on end, _But I always had Sam… I mean jeez, he's not much by way of company but at least…_he couldn't finish the thought, if he did he'd cry for real and he wasn't sure he'd be able to stop, and if dad really was watching him from somewhere he'd be ashamed of him.

The map was no help, it covered only the Sasquetana National Forest and in John's handwriting there was a circle in black and 3 words, 'You are here'.

Dean had never felt such a mix of fury and hurt as he balled up the sheet of paper and whipped it across the cave throwing his head back and yelling, "What the hell do you want from me!"

A chill ran up his neck and he turned quickly, _Dad? Was that dad?_ and he ran out into the pre-twilight certain he'd heard John call his name.

"Dad? Is that you?" he called cautiously while straining to hear a reply or any sound that would indicate another presence.

He felt a prickle at the base of his neck and the hairs on his arms stood on end as he backed quickly yet calmly into the cave and got a fire going as soon as possible.

He'd eaten a protein bar and sipped from his canteen, both events strictly mechanical. His eyes remained pinned to the blossoming darkness beyond the rock walls as his head swam with questions, fears, uncertainties and hopelessness. A soft familiar voice seemed to finally wade through the tangle of his thoughts and for an instant he could see her face again, smiling lovingly as she said simply, "You need to make a decision. Stay and wait, or go," but he was tired, beyond anything he'd ever felt before, and anything other than sitting against the wall clutching his knees to his chest with his focus on the entrance to his tiny shelter was just too much. He wanted her to comfort him, to tell him it would all be fine in the morning but she didn't. She couldn't.

Dean never felt his eyes fall closed.

Cold crept into his bones jarring him awake with a violent quake at the same moment he felt a crushing weight on his chest. His eyes opened and he tried to gasp but the weight on his chest was too great.

_Not possible! Dad chased you off!_ he thought taking in the tattered black hood, the crinkled parchment skin and twig-ish fingers of the Shtriga he'd let get to Sammy. He cringed inside unafraid to meet its eyes as he registered the pistol in his hand. He felt along the grip and slid the safety off, waiting for its eyes to glow, waiting for it to begin to feed. It leaned in closer, the scent of springtime rot heavy in the air as its mouth opened now that it held him still by the chin.

The weight was too much to bear, the responsibility for Sam, whatever it was that he'd done wrong to make his father abandon him here, like some twisted Tarzan remake ad now this thing had found him… he wondered if death would be different. _Would Dad ever know if I just let it kill me? Would he miss me? Would he wonder what happened?_ then his belly seemed to snap in place as he thought, _Will he do this to Sammy one day? _An overwhelming fear for his baby brother, nuisance that he could be, forced him to raise the gun and fire right into the Shtriga's forehead.

_What the hell?_ he thought, _Those eyes!.. that's not what they looked like in Wisconsin… they were white/blue with energy… not yellow…_and the Shtriga was gone. The cave was empty, his fire was little more than embers in the dark and yet he could see the pock marks the two consecrated iron rounds he'd wasted, made in the rock wall.

_I know those eyes… I've seen them before…_his teeth began to chatter as he tossed a couple more sticks on the fire.

_I'm going to find that bastard and I'm going to kill him…_he smiled darkly to himself, _and I don't mean the demon…_

Please R&R as always Triple A

Thanks

sifi


	3. Chapter 3

Untitled – SN fic

chapter 3.

By: J.A. Carlton

aka sifichick

All chapters are under the same disclaimer and the love only grows.

"Aaaarrrrnnnng!" the scream cascaded from him as if someone had reached into his throat and was peeling it out of him. His body was superheating form the inside, needle flares of hellfire sticking and stabbing every place he had. Strobing sepia images of his life flashed in his mind; Mary, Dean and Sammy. His friends; Mike, Bobby, Caleb, Shep, and tens more flashed by, all their images torn and bleeding.

Mary clawed her way up the wall and hung from the ceiling, her fangs… fangs? dripping with venom, her yellow/gold eyes glistening with evil as her belly opened to rain curtains of blood and viscera down, filling Sammy's crib, burying their baby in gore. He could hear Sammy squall as the edges began to bubble and blacken heated in some way he could not fathom. The heat and living flames were rolling out of this sick visage of his wife as her feet dug into the ceiling and she let go her hands to reach down for their youngest son.

"He's ours!" she snarled before a column of flame raced toward him, trying to cut him off from his baby.

It felt like something was exploding inside him, there was pressure twisting and tearing his guts and he could taste blood in his mouth. He knew if he could just get his hands on Sammy he could get them out of there.

At the thought of his little boy boiling to death in a macabre stewpot of simmering viscera John found his strength. He shambled to his feet, reached through the column of fire that seemed to be guarding Sam, and pulled his baby deep into his arms.

Behind him demon/Mary screamed outraged and as he stumbled into the hallway, felt his innards clawed apart driving him to his knees and siphoning yet another scream that threatened to devour him.

"Take him…" he called agonized and looked up into the horrified expression on Caleb's face as blood fell flowing from John's mouth onto the hall carpet.

"John!"

"Take him… keep him safe…"

"What about Dean? Where is he?" Caleb asked embracing Sammy tightly.

"He's at a sleepover… go I'm right behind you…" John ordered forcing himself to his feet for his boys, swallowing back the blood and body chunks that sought freedom.

From the top of the stairs he saw Caleb run out with Sammy and heard his beloved Mary scream as the living fire consumed her. His heart broke as her life was cut mercilessly. Blackness fell over him and he felt nothing worse than his broken heart as he tumbled down the stairs.

"No! No! that's not how it happened!" John cried through the agony he felt, his body still burned but his sight was gone, replaced with only white, "She died trying to protect our son… please stop…" he whimpered feeling wet heat all around him. He knew he was bleeding to death but it didn't matter as long as his children were safe.

"John it's okay… easy there tiger…c'mon, stay with me now… stay with me… come on," he heard Caleb's cool liquid voice run over him, "John, Sammy's fine… you had me send him away remember?" he felt fingers grasp his chin and cool hands slap at his face, "Where's Dean John? Who did you leave him with? I've called everyone we know… where did you leave him?"

"No… no you don't…" John groaned grinning loosely and finally growing accustomed to the ripping, shearing, fraying feeling within, "MY Boy! Mine! Goan'die MY Way!..." he laughed a bubbly cackle that sent queasy waves through his attendant.

"My God John… what have you done?" he asked.

--

"Please God help him find what he needs…" then a faint whisper, "Keep my son safe…"

Dean's eyes snapped open and a gasp hooked itself in his throat, "Dad!"

Hope still shone on his face as he looked around the cave, part of him wanting to find Dad and Sammy's gear against he wall, and the furious, mad, agonized part of him vindicated by his continued solitude. _Why are you doing this dad?_ he asked again, oddly feeling far better than he had yesterday. Yesterday it was all he could do to keep from bursting into tears, today was another day. Today he would look for clues in the area, anything that might indicate this as some kind of survival test, anything to indicate his dad might be around and watching him.

_Okay, plan of action… inventory again cause I have no freakin' idea what the hell is in that pack… find a source of fresh water and look for signs… first things first… man do I have a whiz to throw! I wonder if Sammy's with dad or if dad left him with Pastor Jim or someone… must've cause there's no way in hell Sammy could watch without wanting to show me some damned bug or snake or something… I miss him though._ He chuckled heading around the side of the cave to his chosen spot and took in as much of his surroundings as he could while tending to business.

"God help me if I ever admit that to him though," he chuckled and startled as a flicker of the Shtriga's face with yellow eyes made him frown. _Did that really happen? Any of it? and what about those eyes? They're familiar somehow… but how?_ His stream cut off abruptly, and his hackles stood on end. He reached up withhis free hand and touched his neck, hoping to find the pendant there, but knowing hewouldn't. He alsoknew he was being watched, and not by an animal. _My territory!_ he snorted internally and could've sworn something flew past his ear, _Did dad pick this place because there's something here?_ In his minds' eye he remembered an incident from early last year when, thinking he knew just as much as his dad, he and Sammy had followed John and Pastor Jim to a neighbors house where an exorcism was in progress. That small disobedience had gained their dad a severe concussion, and Jim two broken ribs in defense of Sam and himself.

"I will never, and I mean NEVER give you an order without reason, do you understand me? If I tell you to stay somewhere or to go somewhere I will always have a reason and you are just going to have understand that you aren't always going to be privy to it… is that clear?"

"Yes sir," Dean nodded feeling weak in his belly, "We just wanted to help…" he tried to explain.

John nodded and turned a shade of green, "When I'm not around you're the man in charge unless you're with another adult… I need you to understand Dean, yours and Sammy's safety is my first concern… your brother is four years younger than you… think about where you were four years ago and you actually work at your training okay?"

Dean nodded smiling that his dad was poking fun at Sam for a change, but he also knew he was hurt a lot worse than he was letting on, if he hadn't been the scolding would've been a lot worse. "Yes sir."

But that was last year, and that was taking Sam's presence into consideration. This was now and Dean had been left alone. _So do I stay or do I go?_ he asked himself, _I stay, dad brought me here for a reason… I have to believe that… I have to believe he's watching, that he wouldn't just… he wouldn't…_his internal voice was a little stronger today but he still didn't believe himself. There was something going on besides the war within himself. He couldn't dismiss the sense of betrayal he felt and though he had little to no fear of any entity he might encounter, what he was beginning to fear was the way his mouth watered when he thought of how nice it was going to be to punch his dad right in the face.

"Doesn't mean I don't love you dad… just that you're really starting to piss me off with all this 'do as I say not as I do' crap… I could almost take you down a few months ago and piss'dosity can make you strong as long as control is maintained right?" he felt his lips curl and chuckled to himself.

He stopped in the middle of re-packing and startled himself with a huff. _Keep talking to yourself kiddo… that's really gonna show dad… yeah that you've cracked! Dork!_

"I'm gonna kill him…" he muttered nodding as the heat of temper uncoiled in his belly, _Well okay, he's my dad and I love him… so maybe I'll just hurt him a lot… but how? How do you hurt someone like him? _An image of Dean slipping a noose around his own neck and jumping from a high tree branch came hard and fast enough so that he could almost hear his own neck breaking, _Yeah… see him coming to get me in a couple days… find me dangling from a tree… ha! yeah there'd be enough to identify… serve him right, the bastard…_

He slung his pack and grinned as he left the cave to scout the area for the kinds of clues his father would leave behind.

--

Dean took a good hard look all around and felt a grin spread along his face, the pond was fresh water and very likely spring fed. The small sip he'd tasted felt cleaner on his tongue than even Pastor Jim's filtered water. He didn't have a test kit with him but it sparkled like a smoky topaz all the way down to the beckoning greenery reaching for sunlight. This was going to be a little bit of heaven.

There was a small boulder near which he hid his pack and shoes down at the base of the tall buffalo grass. His eyes shone bright as he shed his clothes fast, took another look around to mark the spot in his mind, and with a huge toothy smile ran for the water pulling his knees to his chest and letting out a giddy "Whoop!" as he cannon-balled into the heart of the pond.

Cool liquid embraced him as he straightened his body, opened his eye and shot for the far end of the pond, the water shimmering all around him. He stayed under enjoying the fullness of the solitude until his lungs were screaming and his muscles gave their first pre-cramp twitch. Pushing his limit, relishing the feeling of invincibility he dove straight down into the heart of the tangle of aqua-plants. If he could find the bottom he would have a full definition of his haven beginning with its dimensions. Stars danced, well started popping in his eyes and he felt his lips go numb. Still he pushed downward, waving the thick leathery plant stalks away with both hands, using what little oxygen remained in his musculature. _Just a little more… _he pressed himself as the water about him darkened and the sun became eclipsed by the plant life, _I gotta get up there… I got nuthin' left…almost there…I can feel it!_ then he felt it, his hand sliding into loose silt, little more than a slight dusting but enough.

He angled himself upward, bending his knees and let himself sink, his oxygen reserves were gone and he sank down fast. It was a risky thing to do he knew, the cottony silt could extend a foot deep or more and if that was the case he'd lose a huge amount of propulsion. He felt his toes sink a few inches then a few more and he let himself continue to fall with his visionedged in black fluff. Finally his toes felt something firm and he kicked with everything he had left. He was a rocket-man.

_Please let me reach the surface! God I'm almost there… my fingers aren't clear yet… just a few more inches…I'm not gonna make it_ and he felt his lips part as the world became a feathery place, the sun a loosely packed snowball of light bursting apart then drawn back together in a flash as water flooded his mouth and his lungs pleaded with him to suck _something_ in.

Droplets trickled down his throat as he broke the surface, then headed into his lungs. His limbs and face felt like he was snuggling a porcupine as oxygen flooded his system and he floatedon his back struggling to even out his breathing and recuperate. _I could've made it a few more seconds. _

--

John threw his head back laughing maniacally as he capered around the man strung up by his heels before him. There was something familiar about him but it didn't matter. What was important was that the blood was flowing freely. It had to in order to achieve his ends. Light streaked in gleaming arcs of the finely honed blade as he gracefully sliced and slashed at the air, occasionally feeling the resistance of human flesh on the other end, and every time he did, he grinned just a little more.

"John…" the offering called him by his other name, "John… don't do this… fight this thing! Fight for your boys John… they need their father!"

_Ahh now there's something I could use_, he grinned sinisterly "Ah yes, the boys… I'd almost forgot about them… now… where are they?" he asked poking his hideously grinning face into that of the offering.

"I don't know… not that I'd tell you if I did but… I really don't…" he chuckled despite the obvious agony he was in, "Come on John… you gotta beat this thing…"

His mouth twisted in a horrible parody of a sneer and the voice that emerged sounded like several tracks laid over one another as it finally introduced itself, "We are the Foenwyn… none of your kind has ever defeated us… we are eternal…"

Oh yeah, there's more to come

pls R&R…

Thanx, sifi.


	4. Chapter 4

Untitled – SN fic

Chapter 4

By J.A. Carlton

aka sifichick

Disclaimer… how many times I gotta tell ya?

Love: This part I don't mind repeating….

Dean lay floating on his back letting the sun bake him on one side, and the water cool him on the other until he was sure he was done coughing, then he started swimming laps. Left, Right, Breathe… left, right, breathe… the steady pace trying to drown out John's voice in his head, _That was just plain stupid Dean! There are plenty of ways to die in this world without adding your own stupidity to the mix!_ He knew his dad's voice was right and resented it.

_Would serve you right for ditching me you s.o.b.!_ he thought angrily and drawing the biggest breath he could, dove deep again, this time salting the pond with tears no one would ever see.

Green on fire as the sun yawned and Dean pulled himself shivering from the pond to squeegee himself as dry as possible before yanking his clothes on and heading back to the cave he was somehow coming to consider his sanctuary. His stomach exploded in vociferous a tirade as he passed a raspberry bush then back tracked and filled his mouth and hands as quickly as he could.

_Yeah those damned protein bars suck! Wonder if I could catch a fish in the pond? Maybe in the morning… for now I got some raspberries and once I get a fire going I can toast open a couple pine cones… God I hate camping. I wish I had some freakin' M&M's… peanuts are nutritious! oh crap! Am I going to have to hunt? _he wondered and noticed a row of the bushes. He took out his handkerchief and started picking, supplementing the fruit with several in-tact pine cones and even some wild carrots (he was careful to make sure it wasn't hemlock he was grabbing) and other bitter greens. Holding the bundle loosely he shrugged, _Good enough,_ and set about looking for kindling. There was no way he was going to let the fire slip tonight.

As burnt orange became the pale violet of twilight the breezy feeling of self-sufficiency he'd borne through most of the day was slowly being replaced by a re-awakening of his anger with his father and a guilty concern about Sammy. _I sure hope the runt's okay._

It had bothered him through the day that his pendant was missing, but with the rapid approach of night his heart beat just a little harder and he missed its comforting weight against his chest just a little more.

The rest of the nights' meal gone, Dean poked the pine cones over with a stick and thought on his plan of action for tomorrow.

Even as he sat with his back to the wall and the fire warming his haven, Dean watched the evening breeze licking the flames before wrapping around him. There was something in the way the air stroked his skin that went against the grain, he found it irritating and felt part of himself begin to sicken with the idea of staying where his father had put him. _To hell with that…_he nodded peeling open the cone and rooting the nuts from its depths, _he wants to see what I'm made of? Fine… I'll show him… won't he just shit a brick when I show up out of nowhere… and yeah, I think I will punch him… right in that smug ass smile of his… hell yeah!_

"Dean…"

He snapped awake his eyes searching the dimly lit cave, "Huh? What?" he asked aloud wondering if dad had come for him. He could've sworn he felt someone stroke his cheek. Just beyond the darkness outside the cave he thought he saw motion.

"I see you out there… I've got a gun… show yourself nice and easy…" he ordered feeling strength surge through him as he held the pistol steady, pointed at the entrance, "I said show yourself," he rose fluidly, a hint of the man he was to become showing itself in his movements.

The dark figure drew closer and stood just beyond the ring of firelight, its shape and size unmistakable.

"Dad?" he asked feeling a curious mix of fury and relief, his eyes prickled and the gun shook in his hand but he didn't lower it. Darkness welled up hissing within, something serpentine slithering through his heart and he wanted to pull the trigger.

"Dean…" it was Dad's voice alright. He stepped into the light, "You can put the gun down son, I'm here to take you home…"

Dean lowered the gun as John reached out to him and took another step into the cave. Dean cocked his head to the side and started deep into John's eyes, wondering if this was part of the test. Something didn't feel right. John wouldn't come in the middle of the night would he? _Yeah, well you never thought he'd ditch you in the freakin' woods either did you? _he jibed himself and felt a photo style image of the map flash into his mind. His Dad's strong writing, those three words, 'you are here' in heavy black permanent marker with an incomplete circle over the area… or was it?

"No," Dean breathed shooting a glance at the far side of the cave where the tightly crumpled wad of paper lay where it had landed.

"What?" John asked scowling and striding forcefully into the cave and around the fire to his sons' pack where he knelt and started slamming things back into it, "C'mon Dean this is no time to screw around, put out the fire we're going…"

The image of the broken circle flashed into his mind again and he shook his head, it wasn't a circle his dad had made, "No," he shook his head raising the gun again and edging toward that crumpled bit of paper that had never been more important all of a sudden.

John sighed shaking his head and turned to meet his sons' eyes with a huge toothy grin stretching his features.

_No! Oh God no!... Not again!.. or is it yet!_ the thought ran through Dean's head in a voice he didn't recognize, and he had no idea what it meant. All he knew was that this man, this thing... it wasn't John Winchester.

_Yeah, the yellow/gold eyes kinda give it away_, he thought though his heart was practically choking him it was so far up his throat.

"What the hell are you?" he breathed keeping the gun steady and aimed between John's eyes.

The thing that looked like his father with Demon eyes rose to his full height and moved another step closer.

"Don't!" Dean ordered far more strongly than he felt. There was something about this thing that made his knees quiver.

"I'm your future… and I'm gonna make you an offer you shouldn't refuse," the thing wearing John's face smiled.

The broken black circle on the map flashed into his mind again and he could see one end of it curling into the other and he could have slapped himself on the forehead, _A spiral… a vortex! Holy Crap! he ditched me into a nexus! And took away my pendant! Son of a Bitch!_ he nearly screamed for the frustration he felt.

Long ago John had explained to him that there were certain areas in the world that were natural coagulations of swirling energies called vortices. The energies could be either positive or negative and sometimes could change their nature depending on the inhabitants of the area. Mental state had everything to do with the swirling energies, if a person was evil or cruel by nature the vortex would amplify that, _But there's something else too… think damnit… think! something about entities… beings… God Damnit! Wow is that a creepy smile,_ he thought distracted by the obscene exaggeration of his fathers' features before him.

"Yeah, right whatever…" Dean sneered, "You think I won't shoot you 'cause you're wearing my dad? Big mistake… see I'm not exactly happy with him right now…"

The thing that looked like John flicked it eyes from the gun to the cave entrance and try as hard had he would, Dean couldn't hold onto it. The gun tore from his hand, snapping his trigger finger and wrenching the small bones out of alignment as it was flung toward the entrance. He wanted to dive out of the way, out of the line of sight of this thing but instead felt his back slam hard against the jagged rock wall, his head hitting hard enough to make him see stars. There was only one problem. The rock wall wasn't rock. It felt like rough wood and his body felt different. Like a heavy leather glove that he hadn't grown into yet, he felt larger and older than himself, yet the sense of helplessness was the same.

This thing in John's skin was across the room standing in front of some other poor sucker who looked like he'd taken the beating of his life. _Poor bastard,_ Dean thought and strained to hear what was being said.

"…they got in the way…" the John thing said.

"In the way of what?" the other poor sucker asked and Dean thought there was something familiar about the guy but he just couldn't place it.

His mind flashed numb for a second and then he was staring into those oily yellow gold eyes and he'd just said something but he couldn't figure out what it was. It must've struck a nerve though because the cold fury that rolled off the John thing hit him like a blast just before the pain hit and he screamed until he prayed he'd die.


	5. Chapter 5

Untitled – SN fic

chapter 5

by: J.A. Carlton

aka sifichick

Disclaimer: See chpts. 1,2,3 etc

Love: One can never hear that they are loved often enough so… Love.

Triple A – reviews, constructive criticisms – all of the above –

His head lolled forward and he panted breathless for long seconds before he looked up into those hideous eyes again and felt rock behind him once more.

"What?..." he gasped tasting copper in his mouth as he looked into the eyes. _Those terrible chilling eyes… where have I seen them before?_ but knowledge snaked away.

"I am your future…" its voice sounded like several voices all layered atop one another and the effect was making him dizzy.

"You're not my father! What…are you?" he asked gasping, feeling like he was filling with hot lead. _Please tell me that isn't really dad... please God if you're listening... that can't really be my dad... _

John's body stood there unresponsive, the cold silence shot a feeling down Dean's spine, a sensation he never wanted to feel again. A dark whisper came from deep within and spoke the word, "Foenwyn."

_Foenwyn? What the hell is that? _And for the first time in two days Dean felt a gnawing fear settle into him, _There's been something wrong since the get go... what if this isn't a test? What if this thing **is** in my dad? I haven't seen hide or hair of him since this all started, nothing besides those faint tracks in the dirt... what if something's wrong and he... oh man... what do I do? _Working hard to shove his fear aside Dean did what he usually did best, he followed his instincts, "Show me what you really are!" he demanded through increasing agony and clenched his teeth against the red hot poker that was trying to tear him in half from the inside.

"It does not fear this form."

_My dad? my dad! of course I'm not afraid of my dad... well... maybe a bit but not like that! Okay so it's not him really... I hope... so how do I get out of this? He's not here, he hasn't been around since he left me here... damnit I hate you, you son of a bitch! Dad... _he felt a hot wellspring of tears clutching at him and did his best to force them down, _why did you leave me? Why did you take the one thing that makes me feel... special? What did I do wrong? _He wondered and put on his bravest face. _It wants me to be afraid... _"I'm _not_ afraid!" Dean challenged the thing before him and felt whatever was holding him against the wall start to lose its grip.

"You will be," the thing behind his fathers' face said indifferently.

Awareness seemed to strobe all around him and just as the ground shifted, Dean fell to his knees, wetness soaking him to the skin as he shook off a strange sense of disjointed unreality.

"C'mon Dean… we need to get out of this rain…" a light feminine voice said at his side. Once again he had the feeling that his body was too big for him, that he hadn't grown enough to fit inside it properly.

_Wow... that was wierd... where am I? _He wondered blinking through the winter gray deluge. Dean looked up into kind dark brown eyes he thought he should know and shook his head. Everything felt like it was happening through a haze of molasses as he began to register the liths around him. He was in a cemetery. He could feel his neck creak as he turned his head knowing instinctively what he was going to find.

He was on his knees between two freshly dug mounds of earth, each had a simple granite marker, the names were clear enough despite the downpour but he couldn't make out the dates of death.

_Oh no... please don't... God no... _it was as if a giant hand of ice was wrapped around his heart and squeezing just a little harder after each beat. _This can't be happening! _"No…" he whispered feeling an outpouring of unashamed tears mixing with the rain on his face. "God no…" he could've been drowning but his mouth was bone dry, and his hands wouldn't stop shaking. Hot bitterness rose into his throat and for long moments he had to force back the urge to throw up. He turned his head, pained green eyes searching the empathetic brown ones that remained at his side.

"How?" he tried to ask then, "When?" but the words refused to come out. He tried again as she crouched at his side, "Why?"

She drew a shaky breath and nodded to herself as if expecting this question and yet dreading it just the same. "Dean, come to the car and I'll explain it all…We need to get out of this rain… come on honey…" she wound her hand under the bloated leather sleeve of his favorite jacket guiding him to his feet.

"Do I know you?" he choked feeling his stream of tears begin to slow.

"It's me honey, Missouri… I'm a friend of yours, and your father and your brother…" she started but stopped at the tortured look on the young mans' face. The further they drew from the cemetery proper the heavier his steps became. Within feet of the car she could feel his grief crushing the will out of him, it was a naked thing he was helpless to dam or resist.

"Sammy…Dad…" he choked and slumped into her racked by sobs that nearly tore her heart out. _Why would you take Sammy and leave me here! Why would you leave me alone! _

She held him tight, both of them soaked to the skin in the rain as the sobs ripped through him one by one, each stacking on the previous, until at last, the fullness of his loss was realized. In the infinite well of his anguish he hitched his breath and buried his mouth against her shoulder, his body clenched as he screamed his rage and pain out to the world.

The heavens it seemed, were storming with him.

Keening his torment, his knees buckled and he was on the ground again, pounding the loosely packed dirt and asphalt road with his fists until he fell forward on them still screaming into the ground, unable to rise until his own personal demon was through with him. She watched him shake his head in denial as his hands clenched fistfuls of stone and hard packed earth, his lips moving though she couldn't hear him over the driving storm.

"Dean honey…" she tried to soothe and reached for his arm once more but he was off like a shot running back into the cemetery to the fresh muddy pile at the headstone that read Samuel Winchester.

"Sammy!" he called, trying to use every ounce of will he had to summon his brother, to call out to him even as he plunged his hands deep into the muddy earth tearing and clawing at the miniature slides that tried to keep the youngest Winchester buried, "Sammy!" his voice cracked but he continued to dig with his bare hands, he had to see for himself, _Sammy can't be dead! I'd never let anything happen to him… this can't be!_ his mind raced spitting out all the reasons it wasn't possible that his baby brother was dead and he was alive, the first and foremost being that he'd never allow it. _Why would you leave me Sammy! I swore to you nothing bad was ever gonna happen to you with me around... didn't I? _Confusion clawed in his mind as he clawed at the earth keeping his brother from him, _When did I promise him that? God if I could just remember... _

His frenetic digging slowed and his breathing began to deepen as something slid into place, _Think Dean… stop…think… what did it say? Fear is its thing... God I hope it isn't Dad... please let him be close by, watching... 'course if he is and he's not helping me here I'm gonna really kill him... _His heart felt sick and heavy in his chest and somewhere deep down he knew his father wasn't going to be there to order him out of this particular fire, there was no one to carry him away from this danger. Dean was on his own and he knew it. _Okay, shake it off buddy... shake it off...what would dad say? Screw what he would say he's not here!_ he thought bitterly._ He'd say stick to what you know… stick to what you know…what do I know? I know I'm a 13 year old kid and not an adult, (although I gotta say if this is what my body's gonna feel like when I AM an adult… whoa baby!) You gotta make it out of this first kiddo…Okay…uh I know dad ditched me in the middle of an energy vortex, what was that word again? What did it call itself? Foenwyn whatever the hell that is…and I know Sammy can't be dead and as far as I know, neither can dad… he left me (abandoned me) the night before last… why? Why would he have put me here and taken the only thing that I haven't been without…_ he groaned and clutched his head in his hands moaning in agony while trying to shut out the sadistic vision this creature was trying to convince him was reality,yet he could still feel the earth beneath his fingernails as he tried to sort his thoughts. _Ha! he'd take it if he thought it would put me in jeopardy…wouldn't he? Unless he thought it could help me and he didn't want that? Come on! He's dad! He loves us! He wouldn't want us hurt...would he? What does it want? Fear… that's easy, else it wouldn't be making me see this shit... that's right… I felt its grip weaken when I said I wasn't afraid… it said it chose to look like dad because it thought I was afraid of him… stupid puckered spynkies… yeah baby say it like you mean it! Ass Holes! Ha! I'm gonna beat you down! _he grunted and raised his eyes.

The cemetery was gone, he was dry and thirteen again but the Feonwyn was still before him wearing his dad's face and okay, he had to admit, that was pretty darned unnerving, but no way in hell was he gonna let that thing see it. He smirked meeting those horrid eyes again and felt his belly quake… _Those damned eyes… they belong to something else… something Evil with a capital E, I'm sure of it… something that makes this thing look like a smurf! Sure, if it knows what scares me then it can probably get into my subconscious… (which is probably where whatever I know about those damned eyes is hiding, probably some stupid nightmare!) son of a bitch! I am so not happy with this… and dad, for the record… it's not just a punch in the face you're getting… I'm gonna knee-knock your nuts so hard you're going to taste 'em! But first things first… how to beat this thing down…It runs on fear so 'be not afraid' as Pastor Jim would say...yeah easier said than done…_

The thing was looking at him, its expression not quite blank. It cocked its John head to the side and blinked. He noticed then that the eyes were now John's and Dean shivered, suddenly wanting the yellow ones back, it was easier to hope that this thing really wasn't his dad.

"It does not fear the future…" the Foenwyn voice spoke aloud with an edge of curiosity behind the layers.

Before his eyes, something seemed to shift and, as if he'd wished it so, those yellow eyes were back, but there was something different this time as it smirked, "I know what it's afraid of."

Dean didn't understand the shift, neither what it was, nor why his blood seemed to turn to frozen sludge in his veins, but whatever it was that had somehow… pushed aside the Foenwyn to speak through John's mouth, _this_ was Evil of Consequence.

It leaned in closer to him, somehow pressing him harder against the wall as it curled half of John's mouth in a sinister version of his dad's half smile, "Another time…" it promised softly and to his utter chagrin, Dean Winchester passed out.

--

"John… you gotta stop this…" the voice reverberated in his head, there was an implication in those words, something that was trying to remind him of something important, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember what it was.

What he did know was that he was feeling a deep sense of fulfillment. There was satisfaction to be had in watching a victim tremble with fear as the light behind the eyes dimmed in the tiniest of increments.

"John… man please…"

He blinked. There was something in that voice. For a split second the sight of one of his best friends, with a deep rending slash from his sternum to his lowermost abdomen, seemed to sort of… skip. He looked down, his right arm buried up to the elbow in the sticky slick sausage casing of human intestines just seemed wrong somehow.

_Caleb?_ he thought then gave voice to the question, "Caleb?" _His eyes look so sad… almost scared…_The image of his face flickered by just before the world went white and he found himself sightless again.

"Yeah buddy, that's it… fight this thing… just hold on…"

"He's dying Caleb," another man said in the background.

"He's not going to die! He's going to fight this thing and beat it!"

"…help me…" the words slurred out around a mouth that sounded full of mush.

"John… where is your son? What did you do with Dean?" Caleb asked urgently.

"It's two days now man…" the second voice added, "Maybe more… what did you do to him?"

"My boy…" John groaned and broke into a fit of laughter, "My boy, my boy, my boy… where are my boys? I'll never tell…"

John felt his head recoil though he did not feel the blow itself.

"What the hell did you do to him you son of a bitch!"

"He's weak enough already… what's the matter with you?"

"We have to find Dean… he could be hurt… hell he could be dead! John would never forgive us if we let anything happen to his boys! Could you live with yourself?"

"No," came Caleb's fast penitent reply.

"I got rid of him… you'll never get to him… he's MINE!" his voice boomed and the two men knew their friend had slipped another notch.

In his field of vision he rammed his hand into the abdominal cavity torn wide before him and grinned as Caleb screamed spatters and streams of blood from his mouth to the floor.

"Nooo God Stop!" John whispered helplessly as glistening ropes of entrails slithered through his fingers and before his eyes, one of his best friends ceased to exist.

"No…" he breathed helpless to stop or undo the carnage he'd wrought, "Please no..." he felt his body tremble. He raised his eyes and looked across the room to the mis-used dog run and smiled, the sight of his youngest son bound by wires all around him to the cage proper, gagged and staring in horror, couldn't help but make him smile.

TBC? wink

Well that's this chapter… special Props go to Beist who helped me remember that though you think you know everything at 13, you're still not above being scared out of your gourd! and that there's nothing wrong with it. Thanks to that substantial input I'm happy to say… I like this chapter. I hope I can, have, and do please with the last few as I wrap this story up. There's such a long road ahead yet…

Also, I'm well aware that there are moments that will be confusing, if anything is completely befuddling please feel free to salt the whip and ask about it… I probably won't respond directly… but at least I'll know where clarification may be warranted to make this more enjoyable for all of us.

Please R&R and let me know what you think… It's Always Appreciated… with a capital A…

Thanks in advance.

sifi.


	6. Chapter 6

Casualties of Conscience (previously Untitled) – SN fic

Chapter 6

By J. A. Carlton

aka sifichick

Disclaimer: uh huh.

Love: what do you think?

The next time Dean Winchester opened his eyes he found himself alone. He felt the cool hardness of rock beneath him and all around only stillness.

He blinked hard several times taking mental inventory of his physical condition before he moved and gave the game away to anyone who might be watching.

In his hand he could feel the cool molded pistol grip and his brows furrowed, his trigger finger hurt like hell though it was stuffed into the trigger guard. _Well at least I know I wasn't dreaming or hallucinating… sum bitch broke my finger!_ He took a couple deeper breaths, dealt with the pain while assuring himself of his hold on the weapon, slid the safety off and rolled like lightning to his knees while turning a full three hundred sixty degrees with the gun held firmly before him.

He wasn't sure what he expected to find but he wanted to be ready for it. The last thing he remembered was… everything. That thing behind the mask of his fathers' face, the stone cold dread that pummeled his consciousness into retreat, he remembered it all. _What the hell is going on here? Something… is very wrong. _He wheeled around scouring every inch of the cave until there could be no doubt he was alone. Slowly, deliberately he rose to his feet and went to his pack. _Vortex or no vortex, this ends now. Whatever his reasoning is… I don't care. If it means I fail his freakin' test… I don't care… this is over!_

He checked the pack one more time then dodged to the far side of the cave grasping the crumpled map and stuffing it deep among the protein bars and the box of consecrated iron rounds. A slow smile lit up his young face as he sank to his knees and pulled the box from the pack. _Yeah…_ he grinned sitting cross legged just long enough to make sure the gun was fully loaded before he shrugged into the pack and set out into the early twilight. It was time to find John.

There were many things Dean Winchester had picked up in the years of traveling with his father, more than John had realized anyway. His eldest son had been gifted with an unnervingly accurate sense of direction for one, an insane knack for finding trouble, a desire to help anyone who needed it and a dedication to family that made John nearly crow with pride. There wasn't, by nature, an ounce of malice in Dean Winchester, but even John knew that his son, at the tender age of thirteen years had his limits.

Dean put the sun behind his back and headed East knowing enough to not confuse Sasquatana National Park with Sesquehana National Forest on the other side of the continent. Aware of that much, as the crow flew, he would need to head due East for about a hundred miles and then south for about fifty more. _I am soooo going to kill him_, he nodded to himself and began to whistle as he walked, the weight of the .9mm comfortable in the waistband of his jeans.

_Lakeview here I come…first things first… stick to what you know… I know Shep lives in Lakeview… I know we weren't too far from his place and I know that dad's gonna need someone to watch the runt... and I know just the sucker he's gonna use…_Dean continued walking at a military clip all through the night until pre-dawn gray lightened the sky and violet started to creep over the horizon. His legs were numb and his back creaked but he was immune to it as he finally broke from the constraints of the forest and his feet touched the first man paved road in many miles. For the first mile along the highway he stumbled several times and had to actually walk down into the runoff ditch his legs were so accustomed to rugged terrain. As day deepened and he saw more cars, though not as many as one might think, traversing the highway he knew he had to get onto the road or it would take him a week to get Shep's.

The first guy he hitched a ride with was a long haul trucker who didn't have much on his mind, other than getting home to his wife and new baby. He took Dean a total of sixty miles, almost half way there before letting him off at a truck stop near Klamath Falls off I62 S. He'd slept most of the ride until the driver told him he was going to continue westbound. Dean had thanked the man with a hearty handshake, wished him and his family well and descended the truck as if he'd been doing it all his life. He knew he had about fifteen bucks on him and that sure as hell wasn't going to get him anywhere quick, but he knew it would get him a hot burger and some chili cheese fries.

He walked into the diner attached to the gas station and sat at the counter, the middle aged waitress well practiced at not seeing what it might not be wise to see smiled kindly at him and set a menu down.

"You eatin' on your own sugar?" she asked cracking her gum and peering at the door as if she expected some particular brand of road-ie to come close on his heels. The trucking world wasn't what it was when she was in her heyday, these days it was a whole different breed that made the long hauls and shared the kids. These days weren't what she was used to, but they weren't half bad when you consider where and when she'd come from.

"Yeah… dad's crashed in the cab…it's a king… can I get just a burger and some fries? Lots of cheese and heavy on the chili please?" he asked sliding the menu back to her, "And a large coke…"

"Regular on the coke sweetie?"

"Oh yeah… full sugar full caffeine… I got a new game-boy I just gotta win at," he smiled and felt his mouth twist into a smirk he wasn't quite sure how to gauge. There was something about the way her uniform fit, the way it clung to her hips that made him feel just a little strange. _Ewww, ew, ew, eeeeew! Damnit Dean! That's just gross! _he thought as one of those images he'd seen on the tv late at night came into his head and planted itself there. For the whole of his meal he couldn't look the woman in the face but he did catch the occasional glimpse of her hips swaying hypnotically around the diner. That much… he didn't mind so much.

To his surprise she'd comp'ed him the soda and the chili cheese fries, charging him a total of 2.79 plus tax for a meal that would hold him at least until late morning. He left her a five and figured it was a pretty good deal all around. He half smiled and waved as she called, "Bye now sugar," from the kitchen and waved with a wink. _Grown ups are so weird._ He thought heading out into the dark making certain to appear to be heading toward one of the large king cabs parked in the lot for the night before veering off back to the highway and sliding his way back down into the runoff channel.

A few more hours of walking, the moon at its pinnacle in the sky and Dean found himself curled up under a flood way that had been carved and piped into the runoff channel for those seasonal rains that could set the state of Oregon on flood alert for nearly a month at a time.

He awoke deep in the morning feeling nauseas, furious and chilled to the bone despite the sleeping bag. He was cold and hungry by noon and his throbbing trigger finger was not only nearly black but two and a half times its normal size and jutting out very wrongly to the side. He wondered fleetingly why he hadn't called Shep from the truck stop last night, _Because you want to see the look on dad's face when you show up on Sheps doorstep or better yet, wonder if he gives a damn when he gets to the forest and finds me not there. I hope to God he has a f-ing heart attack and drops dead on the spot. Me'n the runt'll do fine with Pastor Jim. He'd take good care of us… give us a chance to be normal…_he drew a shaky breath as a chill raced through him deep enough for him to know if he didn't get somewhere soon he was going to wind up sick and quite possibly wildcat chow. _Jim would protect us… then maybe just for a little while I could be a kid too…I don't think it's too late yet_.

He blinked hard as a white four door slowed and pulled over for him. Drawing his hand down his sweat streaked face he made himself jog despite the needles in his joints, afraid that if he didn't the benefactor would drive away.

"What're you doing out here all alone son?" an older man with thinning gray hair asked through the window.

"Just trying to get home sir…" he breathed tiredly.

"Where's home?" he asked opening the door and putting Dean's pack into the back seat.

"Law…Lakeview…" he stumbled over himself as he buckled in and rested his head against the seat breathing hard. _This is just about the most wonderful thing in the world,_ he thought smiling faintly to himself.

"You don't look to good son… you alright?" the man asked and startled Dean with a light touch to his forehead.

"Yessir… just tired," Dean nodded.

"You got a bit of a temperature there… why don't you tell old gramps…" but it was already too late, the young man in his passenger seat was fast asleep, his head lolling against the door, and snoring softly.

Dean felt his eyes close and couldn't have stopped it if he'd wanted to. His body ached and aside from the horrible, 'I'm gonna throw up, no I'm not,' debate shaking his stomach, he felt cottony inside, like some unreal stuffed version of himself and the events of the last few days took on the same surreal bruise green that preludes a monsoon.

He wanted to call someone, he wanted to call Shep and see if he would come pick him up but the payphone on the tree outside his cave was out of order. So instead he went back inside where his dad was pinned up against the wall, the weight of what was left of his body making peaks of the shoulder pins as his skin was stretched downward by gravity. There was something different about him though Dean noticed. He seemed to be kind of flat and shriveled, kinda like a raisin that had been stepped on. His eyes looked empty and lines of salt had dried into the creases that ran from his jawbone up to his eyes.

Dean felt his heart trip in his chest as he approached the human wall hanging. He looked at it curiously and somehow detached as it took a breath and seemed to register his presence. "Dean…. son…" it breathed but Dean looked up and into the shadowy presence on his right. He felt a warm hand on his head smoothing his hair.

"It's okay son… you go right ahead now… it's just an animal, they don't feel things the same way we do," the warm soothing voice beside him explained.

Dean felt his confidence surge and he took a step forward, his skinning knife nearly glowing as he tried to decide where to make the first cut. His finger didn't even hurt anymore.

Though Gramps hated to wake his passenger who seemed to have just fallen into a restful sleep, past whatever torments were plaguing him, he had to. He'd gone as far as he was going to, and to get to Lakeview, this young man still had a good stretch of road before him. _At least his fever's broken,_ he thought gently shaking him awake.

Dean's belly quivered nervously as the old man who called himself 'gramps' talked to a heavy set lady in a Transport Lines uniform. He felt his jeans slide down yet again and cursed not having a belt. He still felt queasy from the nightmare that seemed to cling to the periphery of his mind. His head might as well have been stuffed with that god awful stinky bleu cheese for all the mental clarity he had and he just prayed silently that the old man wasn't giving him up.

He sighed relief when 'gramps' leaned out the window of the car offering Dean his hand. As he took it and shook it, he felt paper pressed into his palm and looked down to discover a twenty and a ten folded neatly there.

"Gee Thanks gramps!" Dean smiled as the driver went to the bus and started rooting around in her compartment.

"Just promise me son, no more hitch hiking… that should get you to Lakeview and put a meal in your gullet… this isn't a safe world for a youngun like you to be alone in…"

Dean nodded and smiled, _Well aren't you just a nice old man! Dad would appreciate this. Then again so do I so…_ "Yes sir…"

"Listen son… I'm not a fan of getting involved with other people's lives… but if there's a problem… if it's your parents or something… there are folks who can and will help y'know? Now are you sure there's nothing I can do? No one I can put you in touch with?" he asked earnestly and wondered to himself, _When did the world get so hard to figure out? When I was his age… man the things we did… these days y'can't lend a hand without someone telling you to mind your own business… but he's just a boy…God look after him… please_.

Dean smiled softly and shook his head, "Really, I _am_ going home, thanks though… really."

"God speed to you son," he wished and as the bus driver shepherded Dean into the Big Boy drove away with a strange feeling of helplessness in his belly.

At the counter of the Big Boy Dean looked at the payphone on the wall. He knew Shep's number as well as he knew Pastor Jim's or Caleb's or Bobby's, _Nah… he'd just get in touch with dad and blow the whole surprise… jeez ain't I just brilliant! How'm I gonna find out where dad is? Maybe I should just go straight to the motel… dad wouldn't leave like THAT…oh man… (he left me a hundred and fifty miles away from anyone and everything I know… a hundred and Fifty freakin' miles! God only knows if he would've just taken off! stupid Dean…) How the hell does someone do that to their own kid? How the hell can he do that and still call himself human? _The more he thought about it, the angrier he got and the heavier he began to perspire until he just resigned himself to a state of permanent puddle-age. He heard a voice within remind him, _(they're just animals son… they don't feel things the same way we do…go ahead… do what you have to do.)_

TBC - Please R&R. It means the world.

Thanks.

sifi


	7. Chapter 7

Untitled (Casualties of Conscience) Chapter 7

By J.A. Carlton

aka sifichick

Disclaimer – uh huh

Love – So big!

This one was tough... please R&R...

Dean stewed in confusion ranging from dread to hatred to nearly murderous intent and even began to wonder if the runt was in on it. God knew he couldn't keep a secret but Dean almost felt like Sam was HIS kid, not just his kid brother, he was also acutely aware that as the youngest, he was also the most sheltered. A geyser of hate shot through his nervous system and he broke into a sweat.

He waved goodbye halfheartedly to the bus driver, oblivious to the noise that was coming out of her mouth, and he entered the town of Lakeview.

Once he had his bearings and a large coke in hand he set off toward the motel.

_If dad's not there then I'll call Shep and at least see if he knows where Sammy is, and if he's in on it and so help me God… (hey hold on there buddy!... Sammy's only nine. Whatever dad's done it's not his fault!) Tough st! I've spent my life looking after him, the least he could do is get my back! (remember… it's only human… we can't hold them to our standards). _He nodded and flushed with warmth, that voice calmed him. _You're right of course…_ he acknowledged to himself.

--

"Sammy!... Samuel Winchester! Open Your Eyes Soldier!" John barked sliding from the table where Caleb's remnants were quickly drying. Sammy's eyes snapped open glistening wetly as they met John's and he shook his head trying to back deeper into the cage, almost willing himself to try and dematerialize through the heavy gauge wires as his father stalked closer. He shook his head feeling one of the finer wires that bound him cutting into his neck, _Daddy please!... where's Dean? Why hasn't he woke me up yet? This can't be happening!... I want DEAN!... please come for me Dean… save me, _but all he could do was mewl behind the gag.

"Damnit! Easy there Sammy… just hang in there tiger," Bobby soothed gently and strode from the bedroom where less than an hour ago he'd placed John Winchester's suddenly unconscious youngest son, "…answer damnit!" he growled into the phone.

"Yeah, NOT a good time Bobby!" Caleb's voice came over the other end.

"Yeah well make time… Sammy's been down for almost an hour!" Bobby barked.

"What!" Caleb demanded and relayed the information to Shep in the background. Shep's reaction was identical.

"Whatever you guys are gonna do, you'd better do it fast!"

"You're not the one watching John die!" Caleb retorted harshly.

"No I'm the one who's gonna watch his youngest son die! For all we know Dean's already dead! Alone! Man, that's not right!" Bobby yelled and sighed shakily, "Now you figure this out!" he shook the phone as if it were Caleb himself.

"It calls itself Foenwyn… I called Jim but I guess John beat me to it before he lost control… he's been working with some of his contacts for days… so far… they got nuthin'… have you ever heard of it?" Shep was on the phone now.

"No, I already told Caleb I've never heard of it."

"Whatever this thing is it's obviously feeding on John… there's almost nothing left man he's like… it's like it…I don't know… eating him from the inside… we're watching him melt away Bobby so if you know something to do besides get him in an ambulance and to a hospital…"

"No God damned ambulance Shep!" Caleb cursed in the background.

"See what I'm up against? He's gonna die!"

"What's a hospital gonna do?" Caleb asked.

"I know," Shep breathed shakily and returned his focus to the phone as Bobby asked another question, "Huh?"

"Has he told you what he did to Dean? Do you think…? You don't think he'd… do you?"

"God Bobby… at this point, I don't know… he was already pretty far gone when he got here and had me chain him up…"

The line cut for a brief second and though he knew the click of call waiting it still sent a shockwave through him even as young Sammy moaned pleadingly from less than ten feet away.

_Hang in there kiddo please… we're doing everything we can… please God make it enough,_ he prayed silently and heard a nine year olds plaintive plea, not for the mother he'd never really known, and not for the father who was so blinded by grief that he was throwing away his boys' childhoods, but for the one person who loved and protected him without a thought for himself.

"Dean… where are you?" he moaned and broke into a fevered sweat.

The line clicked back, "Bobby, Jim's got something…"

--

_Damn, I'm so freakin' thirsty…_Dean thought and wished he'd taken his time with that coke. _Damned jeans…_ he grabbed the waistband and pulled them up yet again. He checked the zipper and button but they were both closed, _Must be that they're just filthy…_he could feel the cauldron of his frustration close to reaching a boil and he stopped in his tracks, a small shaky sob caught in his throat, _I don't wanna hurt him…(I just wanna bash his freakin' head in!) I just wanna know what the hell he thought he was doing? Was it me? Did I do something wrong? And what about Sammy? None of this could be his fault… what was I thinking? (they're animals… they don't feel things like we do) _he heard that strange voice again and while part of him wanted to believe it, he wasn't sure he did anymore. His rage seemed to be flowing out of him with the rivers of sweat that soaked his clothes. His body felt impossibly heavy as he slumped down on the curb, folded his arms on his knees and rested his head just for a minute. If he'd been well, Dean would have perhaps moved on a bit, but in his current state all his alarm wires were as good as cut, and as the protective and motivating force that was his fury leeched out of him, he failed to realize he was being watched.

--

Flash/click, buzz, flip; flash/click, buzz, flip; _Oh God I died and the cops are taking pictures of my corpse! Sounds like our old polaroid… geez Sammy loved that thing… loved to watch the film slide out from under that little curl of… whatever it was… I guess I'm what? Waiting to become a ghost then? Yeah.. I got some unfinished bid'niss…_he chuckled at the same time as he registered cool air on his body.

"Welcome back my little friend… did you have a nice little nappie?" a breathy, high pitched voice flew into his ear and quickly spliced his alarm wires back together so they could clang in his head.

"Yes… I was always partial to a cool breeze myself," that voice said softly and Dean felt a clammy cool palm on his cheek as his eyes came open and he scrambled away from that serpentine touch.

_Holy Mother of God tell me this isn't happening!_ he ground in disbelief as he took in the room.

The walls were cement sealant gray and plastered with polaroids of children, mostly boys, but a few girls as well, all in various states of undress, almost every one of them crying despite the coquettish poses they were obviously pressured into assuming.

Dean's belly flipped over and threatened to heave even as the pilot light under his temper ignited and he looked at the owner of that damned creepy voice.

He was in his late twenties, wearing a ratty looking bouffant wig and sporting fire engine red lipstick that looked like it had been smeared all over his lower face. _Christ I'm gonna puke! Please don't let me puke… _His teeth were yellow and grimy and he stank of stale body odor and cigarettes, _God that smell… don't think about it dude… don't puke! keep your head! _Dean warned himself and scrambled toward the corner as the creep reached for him. He felt a jerk at his wrist and realized he was bound. _Oh st! Not tied too…thank god… only one hand._

"Just relax honey… it's gonna be okay… momma's gonna take good care of you…"

_Oh yeah! no mental problems here! Momma my ass… freakin' psycho freak!_ Dean scoffed internally and swallowed hard knowing he had to look, he had to see. His left hand was bound to the cheesy metal bed frame by a thick hemp rope, _This I can get out of,_ he thought gulping hard as he forced himself to look and see what state he was in. He didn't hurt anywhere besides the pains he'd felt before so that was at least one good thing. He felt hot acid in his throat as it came to him bit by bit that he was tied up in a psycho child molesters place, and that he was naked to his underwear and sporting fire engine red smears all over his chest and belly. _Please God nowhere else… please…_ he prayed and despite his anger felt tears coming. _Alright, evil is evil… what do we do with Evil? (We shoot it in the head with consecrated rounds! that's what we do with evil!) _

"So young… so strong… how old is momma's little man now?" he asked grasping Dean by the chin and forcing him to look into those way-gone eyes.

"Th… thirteen…" Dean answered looking frantically for his pack.

"Ahhh… now… bad little boy needs to pay attention to momma… cause if he doesn't…" Psycho-freak let the sentence hang just long enough for Dean to actually almost become curious before the barrel of his .9mm came up and was pressed against his temple just enough to get the point across. _Oh you so have this coming!_ Dean sneered inside at the sight of his gun so close.

"Momma doesn't like to punish…"

But 'momma psycho-freak' didn't get to finish the sentence. He never, in the seventeen years that he'd been molesting, torturing and killing children had one that had been trained like Dean Winchester.

'momma psycho-freak' barely had time to register what happened as his most recent acquisition, such a strapping young man at that, palm struck him with his loose right hand, in just the right place to force his septum back into his brain while at the same time kicking precisely at just the right spot in the jaw to dislocate the bone and leave it pressed against a vital artery, cutting the brain's blood supply.

Dean set to work quickly, using his teeth to untie the knot in the rope and climbed off the bed, his face hard and cold as he reached down and took his gun into his left hand, his trigger finger a dull throb somewhere in the back of his awareness. He stood over 'momma psycho-freak' and cocked the pistol, pointing it right between his eyes, "Keep your hands off my gun you sick son of a bitch!" he snarled quite satisfied with the look of confusion on his would-be assailant's face as he lay on the floor, his heart beat barely visible in his throat.

"This… this is too fast for you," he nodded and flipped the safety back on.

In less than ten minutes he was dressed with all of his possessions in tact and secured into his pack as he stood in psycho-freaks back yard with a dozen pictures of himself, unconscious, being undressed and bound, piled in the little grill he'd found. His features remained hard, unreadable and he felt filthy in a way he wasn't sure he could ever clean. He squeezed the lighter fluid onto the pile until the fumes burned his nose. _This didn't happen… no evidence, no problem. When someone finally finds him… well the other pictures will explain well enough._ He struck the wooden matchstick and stood back as he threw it onto the saturated pile of polaroids and watched them go up. He was lucky the guy hadn't put any pictures of him on the walls yet but he'd had to make sure. He'd looked at each and every one of the 987 pictures, (he'd counted them too) and he knew those images would live somewhere in his mind always. There were a couple of kids that had reminded him of Sammy and he'd shuddered, nearly pulling them down. _So help me God if I never do another thing in my life I will never tolerate someone hurting a kid… NEVER!_

That night with his pictures turning to ash behind him, Dean Winchester turned his back on the possibility of ever being a child again.

TBC

sifi


	8. Chapter 8

Casualties of Conscience chpt 8

By J. A. Carlton

aka sifichick

Disclaimer: see chpts 1-7 etc

Love: Yah shure yew betcha schnookums

I'm putting it here because I don't want to ruin the flavor of the ending - begging on bended knee (see! Look!) for reviews here. This fic wormed its way into my heart and means more to me than I meant it to. (caring like that can hamper creativity sometimes) so in the interest of honing the craft and finding out where my peers stand... I'm asking earnestly for those reviews. Oh yeah, and if anything isn't clear, please feel free to message me and I will explain, now that the cards are being put on the table. Thanks in advance. Sifi. That said... let the ending begin.

-------------------------------------------------------

"... so we bind it… but we don't know how to kill it? So how do we keep it occupied while you perform the ritual?" Bobby asked flipping over the cool cloth on Sammy's forehead.

"It's all we've got Bobby... apparently these things... they latch onto something they see as pure and do everything they can to corrupt it. Each step it can push feeds the colony so to speak..."

"What? The stronger the colony gets... it drains them? Cause what you said about watching John wasting away before your eyes... try watching it happen to a nine year old kid!"

Something heavy hit the floor startling Bobby to his feet with his gun drawn and pointed at the door. His throat closed as he realized it must've been the pack, and he gasped choking on his desire to let some tears of relief rip out of him. "Dean! Boy where you been? My God son... you alright? Dean?..." he dashed to the young man whose face was a mask of the Easter Island head variety and stopped short. He could hear Shep on the other end of the line and raised the phone to his ear as Dean muttered,

"Hey Bobby," and walked past him, directly to Sam.

He sat on the bed, gathered his baby brother into his arms and held him tight stroking his back, and thinking he couldn't remember ever being so glad to see the shrimp before, _so that's why it digs up those terrible things… but what about the thing with the eyes? That's different… God it's on the tip of my tongue and it's gonna drive me nuts! (later, those things have Dad and Sammy)… man I'm soooo tired… gotta help 'em bind 'em then I can rest…_"Thank God you're okay... listen to me Sammy... I know you can hear me... I know that wherever you are... you're probably scared silly and you're probably seeing dad... least that's what Bobby was saying, now listen to me shrimp-o, you know I'm not going to lie to you... No matter what you think, that's not dad... its some kind of... psychic mosquito I guess... if I understand right," he looked at Bobby who nodded but remained otherwise frozen in place. Apparently Dean had heard quite a bit.

_Where have you been? You look like week old meatloaf... his damned pants are practically falling off him...he's got the same wasted look… he's been fighting this thing all alone, Damn you John Winchester... what did you do to him?_

"So you listen to me Sammy... I promise you this, as long as I'm around I'll never let anything bad happen to you, you understand me? So whatever you do, you keep telling that thing in your head that you're not afraid. You tell it you know it isn't dad and you're not going to give it what it wants... now Bobby's gonna take care of you and I'm going to go wake up dad."

To Bobby's utter amazement Sammy seemed to settle down, his breathing slowed and deepened as Dean wiped at his face and said almost imperceptibly, "…love you runt..."

He got up and went to Bobby, taking the phone from his hand and spoke into it, "Pick me up Shep," then hung up ensuring the man would waste no time in getting there.

"Dean... boy... it's good... hell it's great to see you... we thought... well we didn't know what to think..." Bobby sputtered a little frightened by the wall he saw in the young mans' eyes. "What happened? Where have you been?" he asked again and finally saw something besides stony resolution, he saw pain flicker in those green eyes and he yanked Dean hard against him, smoothing his grimy hair, and wondering why he smelled like charcoal lighter fluid. He hadn't realized until that moment just how little hope he'd had that John had actually left his son alive.

"Tell me everything you know," Dean instructed, something in his voice, just another peek at the man he was one step closer to becoming.

Bobby knew Shep would be there in just a few minutes, _He'll break the damned sound barrier if he can!_ Bobby thought so started giving Dean a bare bones run down of what they'd discovered so far.

"…your dad called me and told me to get here and take over watching Sammy from Caleb. Every time I asked him where you were all he'd say was that you were safe... at first. Later... we just didn't know and he wouldn't tell us what he did with you... he just went to Sheps and demanded to be chained up, said he was a danger to everyone... later we found out he was sort of being used by these things called..."

"Foenwyn, yeah I know," Dean nodded and poured himself the last cup of coffee in the pot on the table. It was cold but he didn't care, he was just so damned thirsty, "It uses what's in your mind... makes you see horrible things, makes you want to **_do_** horrible things... I think it uses fear 'cause..." he stopped and shook his head, "There's something else... it'll show you anything to try and get you to do bad things, to do evil..." he chuckled and seemed to fall into his own head for a moment as he said, "… there's some kinds of evil it doesn't get though…" Dean nearly whispered that last and Bobby felt a chill up his spine as he wondered what kinds of things a 13 year old kid could've seen, what he'd been subjected to, where he'd been.

"Yeah... corruption seems to be what feeds the colony… then it can draw more people in..."

"Why did he take my pendant?" Dean asked fingering his neck though his voice held no emotion.

A hurried knock and Shep calling out, "Lemme in! Where is he?" left Dean without an answer. He was still on his feet and sipping the cold coffee so he opened the door, to Bobby's jaw-hitting-the-floor surprise without looking through the peep hole first and turned his back, walking into the bedroom where he bent and kissed Sammy's forehead before either of them could see, then grabbed his pack and returned to the living room.

"Where is he?" Shep nearly demanded as Dean returned from the bedroom. "Dean! Thank God!" he breathed and squished the young man to his chest, mashing his right forefinger between them and making Dean gasp sharply.

"What?... what's wrong?...Oh Damn! Dean what happened?" he asked assessing the dislocated and probably broken finger. "Hold on," he said and without warning jerked while pulling the crooked digit, setting it back into its proper place.

Dean sucked wind again but just as soon as he was about to shout, a huge amount of pain subsided to nearly tolerable levels. "Oh... that's better," he breathed actually giving them a small smile before the mask came back up and he looked at Shep, "Let's go."

In the truck Shep did his best to engage Dean somehow, to find out what happened, where he'd been, but the young man wouldn't have any of it until Shep uttered the phrase of the day, "...I'm sure he was just trying to keep you safe..."

_Safe huh?_ he scoffed internally, _Okay, yeah I can see that with the whole sticking me in a vortex thing... sure I'll buy that, but he couldn't pick one a little closer? and he sure as hell didn't give a thought about 'momma psycho-freak' did he? Not that he'd know... or care... **I killed a man tonight**..._ the words shouted fiercely in his head making him wince as they echoed back and forth, _a sick twisted broken man, but just a man, because of what **he** did, I took a human life... and I can't tell anyone about it... ever. How am I supposed to feel? I'm supposed to be grateful? The only plus here is that that sick-o is never gonna be able to hurt another kid... okay sothat's a big plus, _he sighed to himself. Nothing could change what he'd done, and even if he could have Dean knew he wouldn't have. He could've wound up dead or worse at the hands of that nut job, and he knew the only reason he didn't was because of John and the hours of drilling he'd put them through. He sighed internally, _I can live with it I suppose._

Shep drove fast, casting the occasional glance at the young man in his passenger seat. His skin was crawling and his mind was literally humming with all the ways Dean was 'wrong'. _He should be screaming, asking questions, angry, hurt... anything but this... what the hell happened out there? Where have you been boy? What did your dad do? God please Dean open up... whatever's going on in there it's too much for you. You're like a gigantic transformer... I can feel the energy buzzing off of you boy... you're going to have to let it out... please... _he begged to himself.

"I'm just tired Shep," Dean said in monotone after about the twentieth glance at him.

"Where were you Dean?" he asked.

Dean gave a single shake of his head, "Not now."

_Oh God what did you do to him John?_ he winced inside.

Dean got out just as Shep was about to put the truck into park and strode to the door, his pack over his right shoulder. Caleb opened the door before Dean could and halted just as he was about to embrace the boy.

Dean walked straight past him with a terse, "Hey Caleb," and made a bee line for the spare room. He stopped at the side of the bed and looked down at what was left of his dad. _How can he still be alive?_ Dean wondered feeling his heart start to break as whatever was left of his anger slipped away. He had a brief mental image of his dad as a wall hanging, pleading with him as he gave in to his anger. _Kill him! Take out your gun and shoot him right between the eyes! After what he did to you he deserves to die!_

Dean smirked, he was wise to the voice now. It didn't belong to him, it never had. He loved his father and he knew that everything John Winchester did was anchored by his love of his boys and his desire to keep them safe. The image of his skinning knife flashed in his mind and he shook his head willing it away. _No…whatever you are you don't get to win this._

"Dad..." he whispered sinking to his knees as a glint of light flashed around his neck. Dean slid his hand under the Horned God pendant and unclasped it from his father's neck, so much was suddenly so clear. _It's a focal point, he took it to make this thing focus on him instead of me... he dropped me into the vortex to camouflage me from it... but why didn't he do the same thing to Sammy? Cause he's only nine years old stupid!_ he realized and clasped the amulet around his own neck, back where it belonged. It's weight hit his chest and Dean felt as if the world had suddenly shifted and all was soon to be right once more.

"Leave my father and brother alone," he ordered softly while holding John's hand in his.

Caleb and Shep stood in the doorway curious, uncertain about everything, Caleb holding an ancient looking text as the air around John shimmered like hot blacktop.

"Dean wait!" Caleb called but it was too late. The parasite that was within John encased Dean and was absorbed into him.

"Start reading, we have to bind this thing!" Shep ordered as Deans eyes rolled back into his skull and he fell into his outstretched arms. He lowered the young mans inert body to the floor, fear written indelibly on his face as Deans temperature shot up and another layer of sweat broke over him.

In the background noise of his mind Dean could hear a familiar voice chanting in Latin and knew that no matter what these things wanted him to think he wasn't alone.

The entity that called itself Foenwyn was by no means unintelligent. It didn't try to convince Dean he was back in the cave or even back in psycho-freak's lair. Instead he found himself standing in Sheps living room, the rubbery tar-like remains of a human being plastered to his dining table. The floor was spattered with gore and along the far wall was Brandy's dog run. He could see John kneeling into it, reaching for someone or something. _Not Sammy please..._he thought and sure enough caught a glimpse of Sammy's dark waves.

"Dad!" he barked reaching into the pack he still held in his right hand. He drew out the gun and held it steadily in his left, "Get away from him."

A low rumbling laughter bubbled up as John backed out of the cage dragging his youngest son by the hair. Somehow Dean had known what he was going to see before he saw it. Those oily yellow eyes still shook him up as an arctic chill blasted through him and a lifetime's worth of wondering flowed effortlessly into place.He knew where he'd seen those eyes before.

"Le..." he choked and cleared his throat trying to keep himself from retreating into unconsciousness. Sammy's eyes were wide and flooded with pain and tears and Dean could see small lines of blood on his Pinky and the Brain p.j.'s. Something, maybe the combination of his little brothers tears, and the fear vying for space against hope at the sight of Dean's presence… his mind flashed to those few pictures on psycho-freak's wall, the ones that made him think of Sammy and he felt his back stiffen. Then there were the lines of blood where the wires had cut his baby brother that firmly steeled his resolve, "Let him go," he ordered as the thing stalked to him, dragging his Sammy squirming behind.

"Dean I told it! I told it you'd come! I told it I wasn't afraid!" Sammy sniffled trying to pull free from its grip.

"Good job runt," Dean nodded still holding the gun steady, pointing it at the things head. "When it lets go of you run, get out the door, Bobby's waiting for you right outside," Dean instructed hoping that those movies were right about the symbolism of the subconscious. He saw Sammy nod his understanding and managed to hold his ground as the thing approached and stood before him.

"You can't beat me," it said with John's mouth.

"I don't have to... I know you... I saw you that night. You're using the Foenwyn to try and get to us... it won't work," he said a lot more certainly than he felt and saw its grip on Sammy's hair slip just enough for him to squirm free. "Run Sammy! run outside!" Dean called watching his brother nod and run for the door even as he was flung backward against the wall. He recognized the cabin as the same one he'd been shown before but now he also knew that the other poor bastard, the one who'd been beat to hell was his baby brother as an adult, and that hideous creature inhabiting his dad was the same one he'd seen kill their mother that terrible, fateful night.

"You used the Foenwyn... you rode it right into my dad..." he said.

"Such a smart boy," it said with John's voice.

"You killed my mother... what are you?" he asked feeling as if something was starting to crush him.

"Your future, your finale if you will..." it smirked, "Shoot me Dean... kill me now and end all this… change your future, make it what you want it to be..."

Dean suddenly wished he could drop the gun in his hand but instead felt his arm being forced upward, his hand forced to turn so the barrel was now square against John's forehead, between his eyes.

"Kill me now and none of this will ever happen," it goaded.

_That's what it wants me to do... but none of this is real... it broke my damned finger in the cave, was that real? If I squeeze the trigger I **know**... I don't know how I know... but I **know** dad will die...What is it Jim says? The Bible says thinking a thing is as bad as doing that thing… Ahhh I gotcha… no f-ing way you win you piece of crap!_ "No!" Dean groaned through clenched teeth as he felt that terrible rending sensation again as the thing in his dad seemed to focus its will.

"Dad Please... don't you let it kill me!" he pleaded in a voice not yet his and saw the thing bow its eyes as he tasted his own blood begin to flow out of his mouth.

It was as if someone pressed a fast forward button,Dean felt his body dying as he lay on the floor of the cabin, his blood pooling in his lungs and throat while the grown-up version of Sammy stood over their dad with a gun aimed right at his heart. John was begging Sammy to shoot him and end it all right now.

_No Sammy... you can't... you'll kill dad! That's what it wants! _"Don't do it Sammy..." he managed to squeeze out through his broken body. Nothing mattered so long as no Winchester gave this thing what it wanted. "Sammy... please don't..." _I'm dying little brother... consider this a last request..._he felt a strange sense of de ja vous, he could've sworn this had already happened, it had the flavor of a memory from childhood, _That's not possible... I'd remember it if something like this had ever happened before. _He could see his brother wavering and pushed out one last plea, "Sammy please..." before he fell into a deep abyss where the only thing he heard was John Winchester scream.

"Dean... come on tiger... c'mon Dean..." it was Sheps voice breaking through the darkness in his mind as his eyes tried to open and he saw a luminous cloud of sharp little screaming faces hovering above him. They looked like some odd conglomeration of pixie and rat with nearly human eyes. "That's it open those eyes buddy... stay with us..."

Caleb stepped closer to them still chanting in Latin as the faces in the swarm cloud screamed and fell in a stormy shock of malicious color into a small silver box Caleb closed and locked. He quickly wrapped the box with white ribbon and sealed it with beeswax drippings, effectively completing the binding ritual.

"Thatta boy..." Shep breathed a sigh of relief and pulled the young man into his chest where he held him, relieved beyond all telling that John's sons were going to be alright.

At the same moment the phone rang, John's eyes opened and he moaned as if he was in pain.

"Dad?" Dean breathed hoarsely and pushed away from Shep to kneel at his dad's side. He took John's hand into his and swept aside the soaking mop that covered his wasted features.

"Dad?" the word caught sideways in his throat.

"Mmm Dean?" his name came out more or less mouthed but the sound and shape of it hitting his ears opened a floodgate nonetheless as John's hand reached up, brushed his sons head weakly and flopped back onto the bed, "Mmm my boy," he muttered smiling faintly before drifting off to his first sound sleep in days.

Just a few minutes later Bobby arrived with Sammy, who ran right into the bedroom, colliding with Dean and wrapping his arms around him tightly while burying his face against his neck, "I knew you'd wake me up! I didn't like that dream..."

"Me either shrimp-o," Dean said softly holding his little brother and stroking his hair and back.

"I knew you'd wake me up though, and I wasn't afraid, you were there and that made me brave!" Sammy grinned and kissed his brothers' cheek with a big smile on his face.

"Aww gross runt!" Dean said wiping his face with his hand though he wasn't fooling anyone, "Now I gotta take a shower!"

Sammy wrinkled up his nose, "Yeah you smell bad."

"Yeah well it's hard work saving your ass," Dean tossed back at him and rose to his feet.

Caleb, Bobby, and Shep all saw the same thing as Dean walked past them and into the bathroom. At the door he turned and asked, "Anyone gotta go? I'm gonna be a while."

They all shook their heads unnerved by so much that none of them could figure out where to start.

"Dean!" Caleb called as he was closing the door but Dean just shook his head, closed and locked the door and started the hot water running in the bathtub.

Withthe hot water on full blast hesquirted a hefty amount of shampoo into the tub, he wanted bubbles, lots and lots of them. He sat on the toilet watching the bathtub fill and the bubble mountains grow, his mind occupied not by the supernatural battle whose detailsalready seemed to be fading from his memory, but by the more mundane evil he'd encountered this night.

Slowly, after checking the lock again he took off his shoes and socks. He managed the jeans okay too but as soon as he pulled his shirt over his head and caught a whiff of the stale b.o. and cigarettes that permeated 'momma psycho-freak's house, and saw the fire-engine-red-turned-orange streaks of lipstick still on his body, his stomach clenched tight. He reached the toilet just in time to feel the acid in his stomach burn its way out, some out his mouth and more still out his nose. _It's okay... nothing happened... I beat that sick fuck... just don't think about what could have happened... it's okay. I set those kids free... I took a human life tonight..._and he retched again before deciding he was done and rinsing his mouth. _He's gone and he can't hurt anyone anymore, ever again... Thanks to dad I got off very lucky... I love you dad. _He slid into the tub and started scrubbing himself raw until his skin felt like he'd rolled in brambles and still he sat there listening to the adults. It seemed John was up and had moved out into the living room where Bobby, Caleb and Shep were filling him in on the last few days, or what they knew of them.

_I've got Dad and Sammy, Shep, Caleb, Bobby, Pastor Jim... and So many more... I know I'm lucky... I had good training too thanks to dad..._

"Hey buddy! You fall asleep in there?" Caleb asked straining to keep his tone light and failing miserably.

"I'll be out soon," Dean assured him softly, "Just soaking it up."

"Something's wrong... I'm telling you..." he heard Caleb tell them in a hushed whisper.

"I'm... just… really tired," he shouted through the door and pulled the plug in the drain then started the shower going.

As the hot water fell from above rinsing him clean, Dean sat there, 987 terrorized and crying faces scrolling through his mind. Finally he let his tears come, a small waterfall tribute to each child he hadn't been able to save.

The end.

Please R&R thanks.

sifi.


End file.
